


My Blue-Eyed Son (3x04 missing moment)

by bonnie_wee_swordsman



Series: Imagine Claire and Jamie Prompts [12]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Outlander 3x04, Showverse, missing moment, outlander starz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 17:17:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12258681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonnie_wee_swordsman/pseuds/bonnie_wee_swordsman
Summary: Show-verse oneshot. While ultimately I DO love how they wrote Jamie and Willie’s parting so heartbreakingly angsty, leaving us (ME!!!) utterly bereft and longing for more, here’s a wee daydream of a scenario where we got *just* a crumb more.





	My Blue-Eyed Son (3x04 missing moment)

 

  


 

 [Lovely (painful) gif graciously provided by @outlander-scenery](https://outlander-scenery.tumblr.com/post/165934940220/mac-please-dont-go-come-back-ep-304-of)

 

**_“ ** _Mac, please don’t go! Come back!_** ”_ **

He would not weep. He  _would not_  break yet, though he felt the muscles of his face contorting like they themselves would do the breaking. He strained to control it, each breath nearly collapsing into a sob, even as the shame of it coursed through him.  _Y_ _ou’ve been given uncommon strength in your life, Fraser, for just such woes. You’ve borne far worse than this._

 _Aye, I have._ He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to feel only the movement of the horse beneath him. _Yet, the bearing of terrible woes time and time again can tear down a man’s power to bear them anew, can they not?_  

He had known no truth so utterly as that, these last fifteen years or more.  

“ _MAC_!!!”

The piercing shrill of the cry—as though the lad were in pain—brought Jamie’s head around at once, a father’s instinct to protect his young. John was holding the boy back by the shoulders, the lad’s wee face—Christ, his  _face_ —

May he be damned for it, but Jamie was sliding down from the saddle, not running, but moving toward the boy, who, with a cry of relief, broke free from John’s grip and hurtled up the path for him. 

 _Oh, Willie,_ he wanted to wail,  _of course I’ll never leave ye, a chuisle..._

Still, he forced himself not to weep, not to lift the boy up off his feet and crush him to his chest, as he so longed to do. He only knelt and let him run into his embrace, the weight of the solid body thudding into him with surprising force. He swayed, his knees wavering as much as his voice.  “ _There_ , Willie....Hush.... _hush_....” He squeezed the boy tightly, soothing. “Willie, lad, dinna fash.... it’s alright.”

“It ISN’T!” Willie wept against his shoulder. “It isn’t alright. You’re  _leaving_.”

 _No, son, it isna alright._ _It’s_ right _, only._

“Now, Willie, we’ve said our goodbyes already, aye?” He rubbed the boy’s back gently, closing his eyes and leaning his head against Willie’s, cherishing the warmth and closeness one last time. His voice was raw and ragged. “Ye understand that I  _must_  go, do ye no?”

“But you’re my—my— _FRIEND, and it won’t be—the—”_  Willie’s chest heaved with his distress and frustration. “It won’t be—feel— _happy, now._ ”

“Hear me, now,” Jamie crooned, gently prying the boy away and holding him back far enough to meet his eye with a smile as he thumbed tears from those ruddy cheeks. “You’ve made  _me_  very happy, too, William.” 

Willie sniffled and struggled to catch his breath, two new tears squeezing out. 

“But ye  _will_  be happy.” Jamie smoothed the soft, brown hair, feeling such a terrible pain at the sight even as he forced confidence into his voice. “You’ll find new friends, I promise. Lord John can even teach ye to play chess. Would ye like that?”

Willie’s eyes flashed. “Lord John can’t be my friend! Not like you, Mac.” 

 _‘Friend,’ again. Did he use that word—God_ , he did _.... Because he’d never known a father; never had any other sort of father’s love with which to give a name to what it was between them._

“Oh?” he forced out, lightly. “And why not?” 

The chestnut brows were drawn in stalwart defiance, blue eyes still streaming. “He’s a  _Lord_.” 

“Well, and so are  _you_ , ye wee toad, but I like ye fine all the same!” 

Jamie was rewarded with the barest twitch of a smile. 

“Besides, Lord John is my own closest companion, and that should be a more than adequate recommendation for your own choice of society.” 

“I...suppose...” Willie said, turning a dubious glance over his shoulder. 

Jamie jerked his head in John’s direction. “Give the poor man a chance as your— _friend_ , aye? For my sake?”

“Alright...I’ll try.”

“Good lad. I dinna think you’ll regret it.” A deep breath. A deeper ache. “I truly must be on my way. And you’ll be needing to go in for your supper, forbye.” 

Willie’s lip trembled, but Jamie could see the delicate jaw setting in determination as he nodded.  _Stamped indeed_ :  _Fraser._

Jamie drew him close one more time and kissed the boy’s forehead, whispering in his own heart’s language,  _I’ll never forget you, my son,_ before mounting and setting off again down the road. He was nearly to the treeline, before—

“MAC!” 

The boy’s shout was urgent, same as before, but now with a spark in his voice.  Jamie turned the horse and looked back, seeing the wee face alight, too, as Willie cried out, “I’ll light a candle, sometimes!”

Jamie's face yielded to a wholehearted smile as he shouted back, his voice catching only slightly, “Only mind ye dinna get caught!”

“Dinna fash, Mac!” A wicked grin, pure and true, just visible through the hands cupped around his mouth. “I’m cannier than that!”

And so there was laughter in Jamie’s heart, a small but steady beam of joy amidst the brokenness, as he finally turned and vanished into the dark of the wood. 

“May ye always be so,  _a bhalaich_.”


End file.
